Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: In this chapter, America attempts to explain it all! He's like Mr. Exposition or something, hahahaha! Nice! Also, you should all read 'The Great Gatsby", "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Catch-22"!
God, I love writing Alfred. ^^

A/n2: And I also like Ylvis (you know the one). That man at least dares to question the bigger mysteries of life.

A/n3: This chapter is funny, I think, but it's also a bit of foreshadowing towards the nations: something's definitely going to go wrong in Europe, concerning the kids.
I can already tell you it's going to be ugly. However, don't make your conclusions about anything yet…

A/n4: I'm always a few chapters ahead of the chapter that I'm posting, but thanks to my very busy (and cheesy) schedule lately, I'm falling behind my own writing schedule. That's awful! Hopefully, I get to write more very soon...

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 27:

If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children.
Madeleine L'Engle
(American writer)

America wasted no time in formalities and politeness – he just instantly took over Femke's job and threw a finger up in the air to catch everybody's attention.

'Yo, people! Hero wanting to tell you some important stuff, right over here!'

Of course, with America being America and everything, it took him about a half second to immediately get everybody's eyes all over him, and damn, that sounds a lot more disgusting than I meant to make it sound.

Still a few more nations were still busy chatting with their kids, like Norway. And Norway would regret that.

'Hey, Norway!' America pointed his finger to the startled Scandinavian nation – well I think Norway was startled, the guy's pretty stoic after all – and said American frowned deeply. 'What does the fox say!'

'…what?' Norway stammered, completely bewildered.

'I mean your kid! He kind of looks like a fox to me. Anyway, look, I'm about to tell you guys very important things, Norway, and yet you keep on talking with your child!' America huffed. 'Can't it wait?'

'It's important to talk with your child,' Norway emotionlessly responded.

'It is important to talk with your child,' America agreed, 'and it's important to keep them happy and play with them a lot, right?'

'Right…' Norway eyed him suspiciously, like we all did.

America nodded contently. 'And that's why I think you should take all of the kids here with you and take them outside. There's a nice little kindergarten around the corner! Why don't you go play with them there, while we talk about the important stuff I have to tell you. Don't worry, I'll call you about it later! I'm the hero, after all! I know all about you! Yay for spying on your allies!'

'I knew it!' Germany and France hissed in union.

Norway blinked with his eyes uncontrollably. 'What?'

America pouted. 'Well, I don't want the kids to hear what I'm about to tell you all.'

The pale Scandinavian shook his head. 'It's not that… it's… you've been spying on—'

'Anyway,' America quickly cut him off and turning to the rest of the nations sitting in the conference room, 'is everybody okay with this, sending the kids and Norway to a kindergarten for now?'

We all mumbled hardly audible things like 'yeah, sure, whatever' and some of us even sent Norway some apologizing looks.

'But I want to hear what that spying sneak has to say as well!' Norway was now actually getting upset, and also, I don't think I had ever heard him speak this many words before. 'Let me be part of it, too!'

'Only if you can tell me…' America squinted his eyes at the Norwegian man, '…what the purpose is of the Stonehenge!'

Norway's mouth formed the word "what" once again.

'I mean, I'd even give my car to find out what's the meaning of Stonehenge,' America continued.

'What car do you drive?' Russia asked, highly amused.

'Please stop,' Norway said, his voice shaking and face paling. 'Please. I'll take the children and go to that kindergarten – I'd go wherever you want me to, even, but just stop that.'

\0o0/

It took quite some time before Norway had successfully collected all the kids – after all, kids will be kids, and that means that kids will be annoying, moronic kids, and that means that an entire hour had already passed by the time Norway finally started leaving the room with the kids.

Speaking of kids, Luisa, Matteo and Alejo weren't too keen on going with him and the rest of the brats. Especially Luisa had her doubts, loudly complaining to me she didn't want to join that line of "brainfarts".

'They're gonna make me stupid, stupid,' she had even told me, glaring at me while I gently pushed her towards the other kids.

'Hey, don't act all high and mighty, missy! You're not above anybody else, you hear me? And don't call me stupid!' I sternly responded to that. 'Now go with the sullen-looking Scandinavian guy and try not to stare anybody into submission in that kindergarten thing.'

'That goes for you as well,' Antonio told Alejo, who also grimaced by the thought of playing with other kids than his brother and sister, 'but you should try not to actually kill somebody.'

'Kay.'

'I'm serious, Allie.'

'Kay, papa.'

'So give me back my halberd.'

'Aw, no fun!'

As for Matteo, well…

…

…

He'd probably be fine if he acted like he always did, so he didn't need to get a "you should behave well" -speech. Why, he probably wouldn't even stand out.

Still, I secretly asked Luisa and Alejo to look after him anyway, because Matteo was the only kid with glasses and therefore vulnerable.

But anyway, so Norway left, and so did the kids, and I had to say I felt kind of weird when I saw Luisa, Matteo and Alejo cautiously shuffling in line behind the other kids, Luisa firmly holding on to Matteo's hand while Matteo almost smacked into a wall again and while Alejo dropped a spider down Latvia's kid's shirt (poor girl apparently hadn't noticed it yet, I wondered how much more minutes it would take before she would).

America stood at the head of the table, grinning and waving to his son – thank god that loud motormouth would be gone as well – as the interesting group of way more interesting persons walked away, and he was the one that finally closed the door behind them.

The American took a deep breath as he briskly walked back to the table. 'Well—'

'EEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! GET IT OUT GET IT OUUUUUUT! WHAAAAAAA!'

'Jorie!' Latvia cried – literally. He shot up from his chair and sprinted out of the room in the same fashion as that Bolt guy, you know, the one that pretty much won every gold medal on the tracks during the Olympics last year.

Goddammit, Alejo!

'You,' I nagged at Antonio as I got up from my chair as well, 'take notes from whatever America might say. Well, the sensible things. I'm going to scold that evil son of yours.'

'Hey!' Antonio made a sour face. 'He's your evil son as well!'

'Well I never made girls cry when I was his age! You, however…'

'That doesn't matter, his arrogance matches yours just perfectly!'

'Are you calling me arrogant, you son of a—'

'Just go, okay? Go nag and at him already!'

'I will! But I'm not finished with you yet, bastard! Keep this behavior up and your sleeping on the couch tonight!'

And then I suddenly remembered I was snarling at Antonio in a conference room, filled with almost every single European nation you could think of.

…

Woops.

'What are you looking at!' I therefore decided to randomly shout around. 'There's nothing to fucking gawk at here, dammit! Just start listening to that blond moron already!'

Grumbling, I dashed towards the door as well.

\0o0/

Scolding Alejo and making him say sorry to both Latvia and his daughter (and to Norway, for holding him and the kids up), took a lot more time than I had expected, so when Latvia and I returned to the conference room, America was already busy showing the rest of the European countries some things on a screen with the help of a beamer, which, apparently, had been in here as well all this time.

Everybody instantly looked up as we entered the room again. Fucking agonizing, dammit, but I guess I deserved that for yelling at the whole continent earlier.

'Sorry,' Latvia blubbered in-between sobs and snivels to the accusing blank faces of the others, while all I did was snort and swiftly sneak back to my seat.

'Hi,' Antonio said as I sat myself down. 'How did it go?'

'Good. I told Alejo he wouldn't get to play GTA V again if he bullied Latvia's girl once more.'

'Ah, okay.'

'Also, sorry for snapping at you like that.'

'You're instantly forgiven. And I'm sorry for calling you arrogant.' Antonio gave me a sideway glance and a broad grin. 'I found it kind of funny you threatened to make me sleep on the couch tonight, though.'

'Yeah, I also don't know where that came from.' I sighted, relieved Antonio and I had gotten a lot better at fighting and making up without the need for hot sex right after – because let's face it, that would be pretty awkward in here. And it would be even more awful if they would all notice I couldn't get it up. So yeah.

Hooray for acting more and more like an old, married couple!

'So what did I miss?' I asked Antonio.

'You missed slides 1 to 72 about America's holiday in Europe. But so far, all I've seen are pictures about America and his son preparing to leave.'

I stared at him, because I simply had no fucking words, and then I turned to look at America.

'…and here, on slide 73, you can see me and Johnny fighting for the window seat inside the plane. The pretty blonde stewardess you see on the left – well, a part of her – eventually bribed Johnny with snacks and sugary drinks to give up the seat to me. Oh, and a French man took this picture, which proves that they're not all snail-eating, Calvinistic assholes!'

'God! And I love you too, America! I love you to pieces!' France exclaimed and started ripping up the paper lying in front of him fanatically. When he was finished with that one, he continued with the papers of the nations sitting next to him.

'This – many – pieces!'

'Glad I haven't missed anything,' I muttered and sat back.

\0o0/

'I'm afraid that's it,' America sadly said, after showing us slide 100. 'Right after this slide, Johnny and I landed somewhere in the middle of Europe – I guess somewhere near you, Hungary! – and so, I stopped taking pictures of our trip through Europe.'

'What?' Switzerland said with a scowl. 'But you hadn't made any pictures of Europe yet! You only made pictures of you, leaving your House, and the plane flight!'

'What's your point?' America confusedly said.

'His point is that there's no freaking point in calling your PowerPoint presentation "Me and mah boi Johnny visiting Europe LOL" if you're not going to make pictures of our awesome continent anyway!' Prussia, who was actually making sense, explained.

America looked at the Prussian critically and signaled to Femke, who was helping him out with the beamer, to end the presentation.

'Prussia, I don't want to sound degrading, but I think there are more important things for you to worry about right now than my presentation's lack of Europe. It can't always be about you! There are more countries and continents in the world, and so you should think about others a bit more.'

Cue an unusually funny scene with simultaneously face-palming and groaning personifications.

America, blissfully unaware of the great annoyance he was, suddenly made a very stern face and folded his hands and arms on his back.

'Putting all the humor aside, I think I have made a pretty unsettling discovery. It's about the children that are currently swarming our Houses and lives.'

With those words, spoken in that tone of voice and with that kind of look in his eyes, he instantly was looked at a lot more seriously. Some nations started to exchange worried glances, others just made a weak "pffft whatever" sound and another group didn't seem to respond at all.

But my attention was captured, of course, and I sat up in my seat a bit better.

'You all seem to be perfectly fine with the kids being here and everything.' America narrowed his eyes and started pacing around slowly. 'Hardly anybody of you European people seem to realize the situation we're in is extremely worrisome and weird. We were never able to have kids on our own, but now we suddenly can? Regardless of what gender the parents are? That's just bizarre. Oh, and please keep in mind nobody actually gave psychical birth to them. Don't you at least think that's suspicious? Also, what about the fact that the kids already are three to four years old? Well, expect for Johnny, who's already twelve years old, according to my doctor. I've never seen the boy before, and yet England and I "had" him, somehow. He's already a freaking pre-teen, but never mind that - theorectically, he's the same age as all the other kids. Yeah, that's normal. It's boring, even. Don't you think it's boring?'

The silence that washed over the room was almost painful. But I actually loved it – finally, everything I was panicking about was being spoken out loud by somebody with a lot more power and charisma than anybody else I knew. I wasn't a paranoid freak – there were more nations thinking the things I thought!

Eventually, Austria raised a small finger.

'Yes, well,' he started, coughing a bit, 'I'm not so sure about the rest you said, America, but as a matter of fact, we were never actually born the human way, either. We also just appeared one day, and we also were already three to four years old when that happened.'

'The kids have parents,' America countered. 'We don't.'

'That's not true!' Feliciano looked a bit mad. 'Veeeee, me and my brothers have a grandpa! Grandpa Rome! You met him, didn't you, Ludwig?'

'I did,' Germany nodded.

America wasn't impressed, however.

'Alright, so we all have a few important ancestors. But do we have parents? Direct, biological parents? Parents that instantly took care of us when we appeared?'

Germany, Feliciano and Austria didn't know what to say. I could see my brother was tearing up and trying hard to think of something to snarl at America anyway, but he knew he had to admit America was right.

We never had actual parents.

In a way, we had been all alone when we were very young.

Hell, Feliciano and I were lucky compared to the rest of Europe: we had a grandpa, we had other brothers – we had each other.

Could, for example, Antonio say that much? He was all alone when he came into this world. Could America say that much? Sure, England adopted him as soon as he saw the chance to do so, but America had been a small, lonely boy, running around a field with wild animals for God knows how long.

'I'd loved to have had a dad,' America said. 'And I'm not talking about England. He was nice enough to me, and sure, he behaved like a father figure, but you're not supposed to fall in love with your father in a later stage of life. And I'm not the only one who experienced that. Romano, you must have felt really weird when your adult self fell for Spain as well, right?'

And suddenly, everybody was looking at me again.

…

Oh.

Fuck.

Now how should I explain to the rest that I've actually always been kind of in love with that damn Spaniard, dammit…

Well, I wouldn't.

'O-o-of course I felt weird, dammit,' I therefore stammered, 'b-but I always knew he wasn't my real father or something, s-so…'

'Didn't you wonder where your father was? Or your mother, for all that matters?' America carried on.

I shook my head, cursing softly when I felt my face was getting insanely red.

'I-I always knew I didn't have… a mom or dad.'

'Exactly!'

America slammed a hand on the table, the sound of the loud thud making some of the countries hop up a bit in their chairs.

'We just know we don't have parents. We know we are countries. We know we're different. That's only normal – if we weren't aware of who we are, we'd probably be the most saddest bunch of people they'd ever seen. But do those kids we currently take care of seem to realize or know that they're nations? You know, in the possible case that they turn out to be immortal and all.'

'They know the capital city of certain countries,' Lithuania tried.

'Yeah! Like, our girl totally knows what capital city belongs to my country!' Poland proudly continued where Lithuania had stopped.

'That's cute,' America said, 'but does your kid know Lithuania's capital city?'

Poland pouted, but didn't answer.

'We already told you when you came visiting us yesterday,' Lithuania softly said, 'that Kaja seems to know more things about Poland than… my own country.'

'It's the same thing with us. Anya knows more about Russia than me,' Femke added.

'Bas knows more about me than Elise,' Netherlands said.

'What?' Finland looked shocked. 'But… but Olaf doesn't know those things! He pointed to Sweden, but told the doctor the capital of Sweden is Helsinki. But that's my country's capital!'

'Same story here,' Hungary said. 'Budapest isn't the capital of Austria, as far as I know. And believe me – I know.'

'Just like Athens isn't the capital of Turkey,' Greece snorted with a disgusted facial expression. 'Ugh, the thought alone makes me want to barf.'

Just like that, everybody started talking and nobody tried to listen, so a huge discussion was the result in which every nation present tried to tell his or her own personal point of view and experience about the matter to… well, anybody. The nagging, the shouting, the throwing of random things – it almost felt like a normal, regular meeting, really.

But America wasn't smiling and attempting to be the noisiest of them all, like he always did. He just stood there, in front of the table, and seemed to be thinking things over very carefully, as if he wanted to say more, but was afraid of what his words would do to us.

While most countries were being very loud bastards right now, even the ones that normally never were that obnoxious (I didn't know Finland and Femke had such high, shrilly voices that could pretty much pierce your eardrums), some of us remained calm.

Like Iceland (who was blankly observing the rest), or Liechtenstein (who sipped some of her tea), or even the Netherlands (who was still trying to kill Russia with his eyes).

And like me and Antonio, of course, because we didn't have the energy to join the yell-fest.

Besides, I actually wasn't feeling upset at all at the moment.

Antonio seemed to notice that and touched my hand.

'Sweetie, you seem… perfectly fine with all of this.'

'Well, this proves that my panicky instincts were right, right? And I love it when I'm right. Even when it's not a very positive thing that I'm right about.' I smiled smugly at him.

'You've always been interesting like that,' Antonio agreed.

I shrugged. 'What about you? Why aren't you a little more stressed out?'

'Why would I? That wouldn't help me further, would it?' Antonio smiled wisely, which was kind of scary. 'I have the same fears and worries as you have about the kids, and, like you, I'm rather relieved that we're not the only ones that see trouble lurking just around the corner.'

'You think America has found out more about the children?' I asked Antonio, turning my hand so his fingers could intertwine with mine.

'Probably.' Antonio's warm hand gave mine a tender squeeze. 'We'll just have to wait for him to continue.'

'You mean we have to wait for the rest to chill the fuck out.'

'That's exactly what I was saying.'

We grinned and chuckled at each other very stupidly, but who the fuck cares, it wasn't like anybody paid attention to us now anyway. After all, they still needed to scream and shout hysterically at each other for at least fifteen more minutes.

\0o0/

After those fifteen more minutes, America had enough of waiting for us to calm the hell down, so he decided to just continue his tale anyway – and that worked, as soon as he opened his mouth again, the rest of us got quiet, almost in an instant.

'It's true that Johnny and I have been roaming through Europe in the past week. We've visited "single-parent" countries, like France and Ukraine, but we also visited most countries that are together with another country. I found out something rather weird about the couples.'

He pointed to me and Antonio with one hand, and to Feliciano and Germany with his other hand.

'You see, some countries were already together when the kids appeared. Somehow, it seems logical that the kids appearing before these couples would be a genetic mix of the two parents. But!'

He now pointed to Netherlands and Liechtenstein, and to Femke and Russia.

'There are also some couples that didn't seem to have a very romantic relationship with each other. Like in Russia and Belgium's case, they told me Russia was pursuing Belgium, who kind of liked him back but not really, since he's a huge Russian psychopath and everything and she also thought he was creepy as fuck. Yet the very small, very tender feelings were there, and so they got a kid together. One way or another.'

'What about Greece and me?' Turkey suddenly asked. 'I don't love that bastard at all! I only want to stomp his face!'

'Same here,' Greece lazily responded.

'You,' America said, 'do kind of love each other. But it's extremely complicated. You're like the characters of that one film, Mrs. and Mr. Smith. You'd love to finish each other off, but at the same time, you can't help but like each other very much anyway. That's just asking for it.'

'But I hate the guy!' Turkey cried out. 'I don't like him at all!'

'Foolish Turkey!' America finally laughed. 'Haven't you read any fanfictions? Man, you're so last century! When two people hate each other, they actually want to screw each other senseless! Everybody knows that!'

'I don't want to screw Greece senseless!' Turkey almost screeched now.

'And yet you do!'

'No!'

'Yes, and that's the last thing I say about it.' America averted his eyes from Turkey and Greece and focused his gaze on Switzerland instead – who, of course, got kind of anxious about that.

'W-what!' he stuttered. 'Do I have something on my face?'

'As for the single countries – your kids are pretty much a mix of your genes with those of a famous, preferably deceased celebrity of your country. So your kids should be perfect – but they are not, for Estonia told me his son actually doesn't know what his country's capital city is,' America explained.

'It's Tallinn, by the way,' Estonia said, adjusting his glasses without looking up from his PC.

'Another example: Rasputin wasn't a guy from Belarus, he was a nutcase from Russia! And yet, his genes were put in the mixer with Belarus' genes. No offence, Belarus.' America winked at Russia's murderous little sister.

'No offence taken – Russia is good,' she said. 'Also, Russia will conquer you one day. You'll pay.'

'Plus, Marie-Antoinette, whose genes were blended with France's, wasn't a French person – she originated from Austria,' America continued without paying attention to Belarus' hissing sounds.

'Marie-Antoinette was French enough,' France snorted. 'That poor lady. A victim of her time…'

'Also, our doctors and bosses act very… very… very… very… strange.' America lingered on saying "strange" maybe to add some drama or whatever. 'We all of a sudden got kids, and they're all like "okey-dokie then – you better take good care of them!". Isn't that a very weird reaction? Did they even seem the slightest bit surprised to you?'

'Our bosses have seem more surprising things in life,' Luxembourg countered. 'Of course they wouldn't be surprised about that. Especially not if the whole world has kids hopping around all of a sudden.'

America smiled sarcastically. 'The whole world, you say? I'm sorry, Luxembourg, but only European countries seem to have got kids. The fact that Matthew and The Greatest Nation Of All are also involved with this, is only because we happen to be in a romantic relationship with two Europeans. Isn't that right, brother?'

'I'm just surprised that you, of all people, are the first one to notice I'm even here,' Canada (wait, he had been here all along?) said.

'So what I'm trying to say here…' America paused to, once again, increase the suspense in the room, '…there are dark, evil times upon us, and I expect the worst, like I always expect the worst, but I also expect we will survive anyway, because I'm an optimistic fool who somehow always manages to be right and the hero in the end!'

'But… but…' Ukraine swallowed a lump and fisted her hands, '…w-what are we supposed to do now, then? Should we… should we panic? Can we do anything for our children?'

'We could panic! Panicking sounds like a great plan! I like your creativity, Ukraine!' America said, nodding stoutly. 'But I suggest you all just keep your head as cool as possible, while I'll try to find out more hidden secrets about this all. With my power to listen in on each and every single individual around the world without breaking a sweat, I'll do my best to unearth all the gruesome shit that needs to be unearthed!'

'Can we help?' I suddenly felt this suicidal urge to stand in the very unwanted spotlights again.

America grinned at me and stuck his thumb up at me.

'You're a nice guy, Romano! You're pretty smart and awesome, for a cowardly Italian gay man! Why, you could be the Nick Carraway to my Jay Gatsby! The Holden Caulfield to my Phoebe Caulfield! The Doc Daneeka to my John Yossarian! But no. You can't help me. You can read some good literature books, though!'

'Hooray!' Antonio cheered.

The confusing, douchebaggery American enjoyed the immense applause Antonio gave him for a while. Then he went back to speaking to the rest of the nations again.

'Just wait for me to return… well, one of these months. Then I've probably figured out everything I need to figure out. I hope you all can miss me for such a long time! I know it's hard.'

I heard everybody in the room snort.

'Oh, we can miss you alright.'

'A few months without America? That's just awesome!'

'Good god, we'll finally get some rest!'

'Your country should hand out more Academy Awards to non-American countries!'

'No more spying!'

'Why can't you stay away for half a year!'

'No,' America said, hiding his face behind his hand in a, once more, needlessly dramatic fashion, 'don't try to stop me with such kind words, good friends. I need to do this. You can't keep me from taking my responsibility for all of this and making sure all of you are safe and sound. You mean the world to me, after all.'

Oh.

…

…

Well, you can only imagine the ashamed, awkward silence that all of a sudden kicked in.

'I'll be gone now,' America said, touching the side of his head with two fingers. 'I promise you I'll return with news – as long as you promise me you'll keep your mouth shut about me and my plans to England, who's about to barge into this room according to my strong Iggy-senses.'

'Deal,' Russia said, and almost simultaneously, the door of the room flew open and England waltzed in, like America had everything fucking planned like this.

'Hello everybody,' England started, walking over to his seat and running a hand through his hair. 'I'm sorry I'm so late. I seem to have gotten some important news from our bosses right before I left home this morning, so… well. I firstly wanted to read it before I'd come over to Belgium.'

We all just glanced at each other and England worrisomely.

'I'm glad I'm here. Traffic was a menace.' The blond man looked around him and frowned. 'Did I… miss anything, by the way?'

While Femke – who was the first one to regain her senses again – instantly denied the Englishman had missed anything, I peeked at the place America had been standing.

Unsurprisingly, he was gone.